The yellow engine light lit up on my 2009 Cooper Convertible last Tuesday. I drove off as the handbook said that was ok to do. When i stopped at roundabouts or traffic lights the engine cut out so i decided to drive to my Mini dealer. On the way the engine stopped and started itself on the approach to a roundabout. Mini called me later that day after i had to leave a message asking what was going on. They did not know what the problem was and would not know until they basically took the car apart but they thought it could be the timing application. As no courtesy car was available i was told i could carry on driving until Monday when the car would be booked in.
I dropped the car off this morning and was told that they would contact me on Wednesday when the car was ready. I asked them to ring me as soon as they knew what the problem was before doing any work. Their reply was they were replacing the camshaft!??! I thought they didn't know what was wrong?!
I bought this car 2 years ago (ex demo) and it has only done just over 10,000 miles!!!! Warranty ran out a couple of weeks ago.
Surely a car that is only 3 years old with low mileage should not have this problem?!
Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated!

If you haven't OK'd the work, they certainly shouldn't be doing it! Are you sure it wasn't just a miscommunication between people at the dealership? Have they definitely started?

Are they prepared to do it under warranty? I've had problems with cars in the past (albeit non-MINI) where work worth £2k+ was required within a few weeks of the warranty expiring, and the dealer has agreed to cover it (especially given that it related to parts which should've lasted much longer than 3 years/30k miles).

That said, even if they're footing the bill, I would still have expected a call out of courtesy to explain that work was being carried out!

They did not know what the problem was and would not know until they basically took the car apart but they thought it could be the timing application. As no courtesy car was available i was told i could carry on driving until Monday when the car would be booked in.

Is this a main dealer? For them to send you away with an engine warning light on, under instructions to keep driving the car as normal... well, that doesn't sound good to me! If they had no courtesy cars available, surely they could/should've put you in a demonstrator or something until one came available? Doesn't sound very good to me at all...